Stoke Gifford council to charge for parkrun

13th April 2016

Event can no longer go ahead if not free to participants

Runners across the country are in uproar today, after Stoke Gifford parish council have voted to start charging parkrun to hold its weekly event in Little Stoke Park. The decision has effectively meant that the parkrun can no longer happen there, leaving residents and participants up in arms. The policy of parkrun has always been that the event will be free and open to everyone, and this new decision goes against that ethos.

Reacting to the news on parkrun’s website, Tom Williams, COO, said, “parkrun has had unprecedented success in engaging the least active and encouraging them to exercise regularly. Providing free weekly access has been fundamental to this and we are disappointed that this opportunity is to be removed for the residents of Little Stoke.”

Stoke Gifford council stated that it would be ‘unfair’ to expect non-running residents to foot the bill for the upkeep of the course.

Since its first event in Teddington’s Bushy Park on 2 October 2004, parkrun has gone from strength to strength, and there are now hundreds of events held every Saturday morning worldwide.